Sense of Sight. 95 



artificial files, and confine themselves exclusively to his 

 three typical flies — brown, yellow, and green hackles. 



Now, I am not of those who believe that our brave 

 game-fishes possess such extreme gullibility, as to mistake 

 an artificial lure for the genuine article, upon the hypothe- 

 sis of near-sightedness. My opinion, founded upon nu- 

 merous experiments, is, that fishes see and hear as well, 

 in and through the medium of the water, for all practical 

 purposes, as the angler does through the medium of the 

 atmosphere; the clearer and more rarified the medium, 

 the clearer and greater the range of vision in both in- 

 stances. 



In muddy or turbid waters the sight of fishes is neces- 

 sarily limited, as ours would be in hazy or foggy weather. 

 It is neither fair nor logical to presume that fishes, in 

 water, ought to discern objects in the atmosphere above, 

 nny clearer or plainer than we can perceive objects in the 

 water, while standing on the brink. 



We are altogether too prone to judge evenything from 

 our own standpoint, and to attribute to our own clever- 

 ness results that in all probability depend upon other and 

 extraneous circumstances. Who, of us, could tell a skillfully 

 tied artificial fly from a real one, beneath the water, when 

 its surface was ruffled by a brisk breeze, shadowed by drift- 

 ing clouds, covered with the froth and suds of an eddy, 

 or surmounted by the foam and bubbles of a rapid? 



Yet, there are those who contend, because fish fail to 

 detect this difference through the same obstacles to clear 

 vision, that they are of a verity near-sighted, and easily 

 fooled by the very poorest semblance of a fly or feathery 

 nondescript; but let one of these persons try a cast of the 

 best flies upon a bright, still day, when the water is per- 

 fectly clear and the surface like a mirror, and if he expects 



